Watch: Fox News stage manages Tea Party protest

Media watchdog MediaMatters has obtained footage “from an anonymous tipster” of what it says is a Fox News producer giving stage directions to a crowd of Tea Party protesters at the 912 event in Washington, DC, last weekend.

“We just received the following behind the scenes footage from an anonymous tipster showing what appears to be a Fox News producer encouraging a crowd to scream and holler during a ‘report’ by Fox News’ Griff Jenkins,” the watchdog group reported on its Web site Friday.

Here is the video MediaMatters obtained:

…And here is what that moment looked like on Fox News:

“I guess it wasn’t enough for Fox News to promote the hell out of Glenn Beck’s 9/12 death march – they also needed to incite the crowd – you know, get them nice and pumped up so they’d looked good for the cameras,” Karl Frisch writes at MediaMatters. “Fair & Balanced? More like Fake & Staged.”

“Although this video provides a clear-cut example of Fox propaganda in action, the only thing truly shocking about it is that it won’t wake up real journalists to the fact that just about every single thing you see on Fox is manufactured,” writes Jed Lewinson at DailyKos. “They are an infotainment channel for conservatives, not a real media outlet.”